


Artificial

by EnsignCelery



Category: Motorcity
Genre: Car!Chuck, M/M, sexualizing a machine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-26
Updated: 2012-11-26
Packaged: 2017-11-19 14:20:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/574173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnsignCelery/pseuds/EnsignCelery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kink Meme prompt: "I'd like to see a fanfic where Chuck is not actually a human, but the AI in Mutt. Could you still make Chuck/Mike happen somehow? I think it would be interesting."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Artificial

**Author's Note:**

> I had this saved as a Word document titled "oh my god what is this" XD

Mike loved each and every one of the Burners.  
  
Jacob had taken him in, given him a home when he was at his lowest, the torn remains of his cadet uniform the only things covering him from the harsh heckling of the Motorcity gangs he’d run into before Sasquatch’s rumbling engine sent them running. Texas had helped give him his confidence back, cheering him on, helping him realize that the only place to go after hitting rock bottom was right back up to the top. Julie and Dutch had appeared as shining beacons of hope, former Deluxians that hated the gleaming white city as much as he did.  
  
It was Mutt, though, that Mike loved the most.  
  
Mutt, who Mike and Texas had dug up from an old salvage yard together, ignoring Jacob’s teasing about how beat up she was, how it was unlikely she’d ever get running. Mutt, who Dutch took one look at before forming the perfect car in his mind, proving to Mike and the rest of the Burners for the first of many times to come that he was a true mechanical and artistic genius. Mutt, who Julie immediately fell in love with and insisted that the cute little bobble head she’d found would look amazing in, providing Mike with the perfect name.  
  
Mutt, who had a little bit of every single one of the Burners inside of her.  
  
Dutch had not only fixed up the car itself, but had also tinkered around with the old AI inside of it, enabling it to learn as it went. And, really, that was what Mike loved most about Mutt.  
  
Or, really, he should say, what he loved most about _Chuck._  
  
It was a really lame name that had come up during a particularly silly conversation Mike had with his car after one of the very first missions he had gone on with his fellow Burners. Mike realized, of course, that he should feel stupid for talking to his car like it was a person, but he felt like his car was the most human thing he had in his life. This car was his life, his freedom, and he felt like it should know it.  
  
“God, that was close!” He had sighed, collapsing back into the cushioned seat. He gave the console a loving pat. “I’m really glad to have you, baby.”  
  
“You certainly don’t drive like someone who’s glad to have their car.”  
  
“What the fuck?!” Mike jumped, glancing around wildly, before remembering the car’s AI. “Oh, wow. Um, sorry, I didn’t realize you had developed a speech pattern yet.”  
  
“I’ve been assembled for weeks, now. I’ve had plenty of time to observe speech patterns and develop my own,” the speakers vibrated out, the voice surprisingly deep.  
  
“Huh,” Mike ran his fingers along one, caressing the braided plastic. “It’s weird. I’ve always kind of thought of you as a girl.”  
  
“Most of the voices I’ve heard were male. It was natural of me to develop a male voice.”  
  
“Oh,” he murmured, nodding to himself. “I guess that makes sense.” A pause, to grin softly to himself. “So! I guess this kind of makes you my butler or something, huh, buddy?” Mike grinned, patting at the speaker before once again leaning back in his seat, crossing his arms behind his head.  
  
“You treat me more like a slave.”  
  
“Oh, come on, I do not,” Mike laughed. “How about we give you a good butler name?”  
  
“’Mutt’ is fine.”  
  
“No, dude, how about Jarvis? Or Sebastian?”  
  
“I think I would prefer ‘Mutt.’”  
  
“Charles?”  
  
There was a pause.  
  
“I wouldn’t mind ‘Charles.’”  
  
“Wait,” Mike said with a grin. “I take it back. That’s way too formal for a buddy of mine. What about Chuck?”  
  
A sigh, laced with a soft crackling.  
  
Mike grinned at that. He didn’t know AIs could sigh.  
  
“’Chuck’ it is, then, I guess.”  
  
Despite the contractions that Mike assumed Chuck had picked up from listening to him and his friends, Chuck remained oddly formal for a few weeks following. He assumed it had something to do with the basic programming of the AI or something. Really, that whole butler thing wasn’t that far off.   
  
By the time the six month mark had rolled around, though, Chuck had developed a slightly higher voice (Mike blamed Julie dragging her friend Claire down more and more), had started using more slang (all of the guys were at fault for that), and had started to develop a very grouchy, screamy approach to Mike’s driving. He assumed that had something to do with Roth and Dutch conspiring against him while they fixed up Mutt and, sometimes, Chuck’s own hardware after a particularly rough mission.  
  
Chuck had developed a _personality_. And Mike was totally and completely in love with him.  
  
Yeah, again, Mike knew it was stupid. Cars aren’t people, no matter how much he sees his as one; AIs aren’t capable of real emotions, no matter how often Chuck seemed to emulate fear and anger; and Mike was completely out of his mind for developing feelings for his stupid car and its stupid artificial intelligence, but he just couldn’t stop it.   
  
“Chuck,” Mike said softly, sliding into the driver’s seat and fastening his safety belt (best not to annoy the AI before he’d even started driving). “Let’s go for a regular old drive, huh? I need to clear my head a little bit.”  
  
“Y’sure you’re not gonna go chasing any Kane bots or slamming me into any buildings, dude?”  
  
“Can’t make any promises, but I’ll do my best.”  
  
Mutt purred to life around him, the engine stuttering just a little bit as it started in what Mike had come to know as Chuck’s special form of showing annoyance. He thought of it as an AI eye-roll.   
  
“C’mon, baby, don’t be like that,” Mike said with a grin, running the palm of his hand soothingly over the gear shift. “I mean it. I just wanna go for a drive, nothin’ else.”  
  
The car gave a little rumble of assent and Mike’s grin spread into a full smile. He moved the little skull to guide the shifter smoothly into place before carefully pressing his foot down, knowing Chuck would appreciate the smooth acceleration instead of his normal foot-to-the-floor, danger-approacheth style.  
  
And, God, was it ever ridiculous that he was constantly thinking of the car’s feelings – no, of the AI’s feelings – even when he was trying his best to sort out his own.  
  
Neon lights whipped across his face as he smoothly avoided any major obstacles on the highway, trying his best to allow his thoughts to drift. It was usually so easy to drive his car and let the rest of the world disappear around him, let his thoughts sort themselves out as he fell into the trance that the rumbling engine and the smell of iron and leather lulled him into.  
  
But he also usually had the sound of Chuck’s voice to help him through it all, too.  
  
Mike realized that he had slowly began to rely on Chuck for a little of everything. He let out his frustrations, his fears, his everything when he was in the driver’s seat, and Chuck was always there to talk it out with him.   
  
Except this wasn’t the sort of thing Chuck could help him with since he and Chuck were the ones causing the damned problem to begin with!  
  
“FUCK,” Mike growled, slamming on the break and earning himself a loud yelp from the AI as Mutt skidded to a sudden halt, the car briefly losing traction and sliding sideways into a half circle before coming to a halt.  
  
“What the hell are you doing?!” Chuck yelled, his voice a little higher than usual in his panic and anger. “I thought you said you were just taking me for a drive! What the hell was _that?_ ”  
  
“Shut UP, Chuck!” Mike yelled, slamming the heel of his hand into the steering wheel. “You aren’t helping! None of this is helping!” His shoulders sagged, his hand clenched around the wheel, and his head fell forward, temple cradled against his wrist. “What the fuck is _wrong_ with me?”   
  
A whisper. For a second, he wasn’t sure the AI had heard him.   
  
But of course it did. Chuck heard everything.  
  
“The only thing wrong with you, man, is that you suddenly think taking out your emotions on my poor, wearing wheels is a better way to sort through your shit than, oh, I don’t know, _talking_ to me like a sane human being!?”  
  
“Sane human beings don’t talk to their cars, Chuck!”  
  
“Fine!” There was a huffing noise through the speakers, layered with a small burst of static. “Sane for you, then, Mikey. Whatever. Just say what it is that’s got you so messed up, dude.”  
  
Mike let out a shuddering sigh into the leather of the wheel. He might as well just come out and say it, especially after Chuck’s magnificent choice of wording, there.  
  
“I’m _messed up_ alright, Chuckles,” he got out, his voice a little raspy. God, he wasn’t going to fucking _cry,_ was he? He knew he was frustrated, but _jeez_. “I’m a messed up guy who talks to his car, treats him like a friend, and starts to fucking think of him like a _lover._ Who the fuck even DOES that, Chuck? Huh?!”   
  
He brought his other hand up, tangling his fingers into his hair, tugging harshly at the strands; trying to justify the tears prickling the corners of his eyes.  
  
A beat of silence.  
  
And then a cocky, “Well, jeez, I’d HOPE you thought of me as a lover after all the crap you put me through, Mikey.”  
  
“Wh-” Mike blinked, lifting his head from the steering wheel just enough to stare up at the blinking lights of the console, “What?”  
  
“Dude, you’ve got your hands all over me, all the time. I mean, you might as well be feeling me up every time you’re tuning up my engine for no good reason other than because you want to. And, I mean, I guess I can’t actually feel it when you’re cranking away at my gear shift, but, man, doesn’t the penis resemblance have any impact on you at all?”  
  
Another blink.  
  
“You know what a penis is?”  
  
“Jesus, Mike, so not the point to be focusing on.”  
  
“So, wait,” Mike said, sitting up slowly, his eyes glued on the console. He’d always thought of the flickering blue lights as Chuck’s eyes, sap that he was, and usually tried to look into them when he spoke. “You think of me like a lover, too?”  
  
“Lover’s kind of a cheesy way to put it, Mikey.”  
  
“Well, we can’t actually have sex, so it’s not like I can call you a fuck buddy or anything, dude.”  
  
A loud crackle mixed with a soft huffing noise filled the car for a minute. Chuck’s version of a laugh.   
  
“Lover then, you big girl. But, yeah,” Chuck said. “Dutch might be the one that rebuilds me, and the other guys might help you with my maintenance every once in awhile, but you’re the only one that really takes care of me. You’re the only one that talks to me, that asks me if I think I’m running alright, if I think there’s anything else I’d like to know or have added to my next upgrade. You’re the only person I think of when I think of love.”  
  
“Love,” Mike repeated softly. “Dude, you can’t even feel love.”  
  
“Says who?” A rapid flickering of lights and stuttering of the engine. “I know what love is, and I think about you when I think of the word. That’s feeling it if anything is,” the AI spat out, the lights dimming all over the car. Chuck was glaring at him.  
  
Mike held up his hands in surrender. “Dude, I’m just saying! You’re an AI – ‘artificial’ is kind of in the name.”  
  
“Since when do you give a shit about what limitations other people come up with?”  
  
Mike froze, his arms lowering slowly. He stared stupidly at the dimmed lights of the console, his eyes going wide.   
  
Chuck was right. Chuck was always right. Mike never cared about what other people said, what other people told him about the world. He had always gone with his gut feeling, with what his heart and his conscience told him about the world around him.  
  
So what if it was weird of him to talk to his car? He did it anyway. In front of the guys, even.  
  
So what if it was weird of him to develop feelings for the same car? Wasn’t it natural for someone to develop feelings for the person – for the _being_ – that understood them the best?   
  
And, really, who gave a shit. It felt right.  
  
Chuck felt right.  
  
Mike let out a small huff of laughter and leaned forward once more, this time to leave a small kiss on the steering wheel in front of him.  
  
“You’re right, Chuck,” he muttered. “Who gives a shit?”  
  
A soft humming. Mike wasn’t sure if it was from the car or from the speakers this time. Probably both, actually.   
  
“Of course I’m right.” Chuck’s deep voice rumbled all around him, and Mike realized that the continued dimness of the lights around him were no longer a glare but, instead, meant to be soft. Soothing. “I know you, Mike. All you had to do was talk to me, dude.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
He sat in silence for a moment, smiling contentedly to himself, before a sharp, excited noise from the speakers broke him out of it.   
  
“And, hey, now that we’ve got you talking, maybe we can work on some of this ‘lover’ business, huh? Make good on some of that sex-stuff you’re convinced we can’t have!”  
  
“Wait, **_what?_** ”


End file.
